<p>argh, i alwasy read the book and also sometimes sparknotes, and it ****es me off because the kid behind me ONLY reads sparknotes MAYBE SOMETIMES, and he gets the same grade in the class as me. the teacher is always marking my analysis as "wrong." HOW CAN MY INTERPRETATION OF A QUOTE BE WRONG?!?!? ughhhh.. </p>
<p>ANY ADVICE?</p>
<p>Sparknotes are great when you're seeing Shakespeare in the city in a week and you don't have time to read the play. I learned that from my mother.</p>
<p>It's also great when you're doing on a paper on Dostoyevsky or Garcia Marquez. The books are so dense and chock-full of importancies, and sparknotes are great as a reference instead of having to piece through page by page. I never, ever use them alone though. Mostly because I love literature too much. I will read everything we're given. </p>
<p>I was saw Sparknotes for "Night", and I was all like ***? It's like 90 pages. And woe be the soul who does not read Night...woe be it...</p>
<p>PS: to the poster who referenced using sparknotes for Othello...one thing similar to this are the Folger Library's editions of Shakespeare. The left page is the "modern English" translation with footnotes of the right page of the actual script. There's also a summary at the beginning of each scene. My Shakespeare-obsessed former English teacher hates this and finds it distracting, but it's an amazing tool.</p>
<p>I'm in 8th grade and I used sparknotes pretty much once a week the night before my algebra tests. It helps A TON. I've been getting A's every since. :)</p>
<p>I tried sparknotes for Scarlet Letter and then my teacher gave a quotes quiz :(</p>
<p>yeah but scarlet letter was a horrendous book to read. i hated it so much.</p>
<p>i only spark in extreme circumstances (eg. grapes of wrath).</p>
<p>WWW.GRADESAVER.COM</p>
<p>hahaha i could completely understand doing it for the scarlet letter...even my english teacher thinks that it's boring :P</p>
<p>My english teacher, in a way, encourages us to use them also, stating that he even uses them. I find that Cliffnotes goes more in depth, but unfortunately, they don't have one for the book I'm currently reading (A Tree Goes in Brooklyn, which I have to say I understand and think is a great book). </p>
<p>Sparknotes summaries are excellent if you have read what you need to read over an extneded amount of time. The analysis of each chapter can be confusing though, especially if you don't read it. </p>
<p>I have yet to rely fully on Sparknotes / Cliffnotes instead of reading the books though. I know when I used Sparknotes when I only "glanced" over the chapters, I got a 60 on the quiz. </p>
<p>One other note - The quizzes on Sparknotes I find are actually good for a review before a major test because they sometimes are used by the teacher (ie: my current english teacher).</p>